So, you're ready to estimate the size of a planned software development project or capture the actual size of an in-progress or completed project. The good news is SLIM-Suite® tools are incredibly flexible. You can model almost any software development lifecycle methodology and choose from a wide variety of size metrics and techniques. The bad news is, with so many components and sizing methods to choose from, how do you select the right one for your project?

Episode 4 of our video series, Software Size Matters: Why Quantifying Software Size is Critical for Project Estimating, Tracking and Forecasting, and Performance Benchmarking, focuses on choosing a sizing method that fits the information you have on hand and your project's lifecycle stage. In previous videos, we discussed why quantifying software size is important, what software size is and is not, and looked at familiar metrics you're probably using now. It turns out there are a variety of sizing methods to choose from. Asking a few simple questions up front can quickly point you in the right direction.

You intuitively know that the scope of your software development project determines your team size, schedule, and budget. How do you measure software project scope, especially when you don’t have much information to go on?

Episode 3: Sizing Terms & Metrics is part of our Software Size Matters video series that explores how you not only can, but should be using software size measures at every stage of software project, program, and portfolio management. In Episode 1, we introduced QSM's Software Lifecycle Management top-down scope-based project estimating simulation model. In Episode 2, we explained why quantifying software size is so important. In this episode, we'll discuss sizing terms and metrics you're likely familiar with and already using.

Watch Episode 3: Sizing Terms & Metrics

Size is one of Five Core Metrics used to understand and manage software projects.

In today's world, Data Analytics is everywhere helping us recognize patterns and trends, providing insights, and driving business decisions. Software engineers, cost analysts, and project and portfolio managers need data to:

• Sanity check vendor bids
• Prioritize software projects with the highest ROI or to achieve strategic goals
• Secure resources for projects in their pipeline
• Calculate and benchmark productivity and capacity
• Create realistic estimates and plans for new projects.

So ensuring your data is valid and relevant is crucial.

Episode 2: Why Quantify Software Size? is part of our video series, Software Size Matters! Why Quantifying Software Size is Critical for Project Estimating, Tracking, and Performance Benchmarking, that explores how you not only can but should be using software size measures at every stage of the software project, program, or portfolio management process. In this episode, we'll talk about how to keep your measurement process simple and useful and show key software project performance insights gained from software size.

Watch Episode 2: Why Quantify Software Size?

Our new video series, Software Size Matters! Why Quantifying Software Size is Critical for Project Estimating, Tracking, and Performance Benchmarking, explores how you not only can but should be using software size measures at every stage of the software project, program, or portfolio management process. We created this video series to help you improve the accuracy of your software estimates, plans and forecasts because software size matters. 

The core management metrics used for software estimation and software project management - schedule (duration), effort (cost), quality (defects) and developer productivity - all increase with software size (scope).  This may not surprise you. But did you know that they increase in a nonlinear fashion?  This is why estimating and managing software projects is challenging!

How good are your software project estimates compared to the actual time and money spent when the project's completed? If you want to improve your software estimation accuracy, this video series is for you!

Watch Episode 1: Introduction

Quantifying software size helps you with:

How many times have you been involved with a software project or a portfolio of projects where the schedule or budget is doomed from the start? It happens all the time. One of the best ways to avoid this problem is to leverage historical data – actual performance of completed software projects. QSM has over 46 years experience in software estimation and control. We have seen thousands of projects and products delivered, both in-house and vendor driven. One of the biggest problems we help our clients solve is negotiating the right cost and schedule targets. Whether advising a client on an in-house project, a vendor on their proposal, or an end user with a bid evaluation decision, one thing becomes very clear − all sides are trying to negotiate a cost and timeline that they feel comfortable with. The problem is that they often negotiate with little to no data of past performance.

Negotiating Initial Schedule and Budget Commitments

You don't need data from hundreds of projects, and it doesn’t need to be granular. Software project or release level data is a great place to start. It establishes a baseline that you can count on because the delivery targets have been achieved in the past. It is tough to argue with cost and schedule numbers that have already been proven, and of course, having the data at your fingertips gives you a leg to stand on when negotiating.

The best practice we recommend is to capture a few core metrics: